First Methadone Maintenance Program in Sub-Saharan Africa Opens Its Doors in Tanzania

The New York Times examines "the first methadone maintenance program in sub-Saharan Africa," which opened this month in a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with funding support from PEPFAR. "While heroin use is not common in Africa, it has been growing recently in Tanzania's port cities, which are used to ship the drug, usually from Afghanistan to Europe. ... Tanzania now has an estimated 25,000 drug injectors, 40 percent of them infected with HIV, according to the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that is advising the Tanzanian government on the program," according to the newspaper. The article notes some of the challenges health experts anticipate the program may face (McNeil, 2/21).

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